How do I NOT get guillotine chokes when I go for double and single leg take downs?

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Member of DaJoGen MMA school under Dave Hagen and Team Chaos fight team under Denver Mangiyatan and Chris Toquero, ran out of Zanshin Martial Arts in Salem Oregon: http://www.zanshinarts.org/Home.aspx,

By coming in with your head UP! Your head should be over your hips and you should never be looking down. Also, make certain to maintain a good bullneck/turtle neck.

You can also shoot the double with your head up and in the center chest area (think about the Zidane headbutt from the World Cup). That tends to work for me.

I have also found that if you finish the double by moving laterally and bypassing the guard, it won't matter if they have a guillotine or not.

Then when all else fails, learn to counter the guillotine. Its pretty simple.

Have your partners do nothing but pull guard and try to get guillotines while you shoot your takedowns. Isolate your training this way and get a lot of reps in. Eventually you will learn to set up your shots so this doesn't happen.

Or, go for a good clinch and take your opponent down from there. You'll often avoid the situation entirely from that method.

John knows his stuff. Keep the head up and when you come in on your opponent make sure that you bring yourself lower to your opponent by squating down, not bending over, keeping your head up against their side (or chest like John suggested), and then stand up straight, still keeping your head up. This way you can go for your single or double leg take down or trip them, sweep them, spin around to their back, hip toss, etc.

_________________________"IF I COME ... I'M BRINGING THE PAIN WITH ME"

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Member of DaJoGen MMA school under Dave Hagen and Team Chaos fight team under Denver Mangiyatan and Chris Toquero, ran out of Zanshin Martial Arts in Salem Oregon: http://www.zanshinarts.org/Home.aspx,

Okay all you grapplers time to sprinkle some knowledge on this stand up fighter.

I'm interested in the single leg take downs. That is the approach I use to try and get leg locks.

What I do is I lean forward and attack my opponents thigh just above the knee with my forarm and elbow to knock him down.

Now in practice when my instructor demonstrates this, he stays on his feet, however, I have tried it in a more realistic type scenerio by having my partner use resistance and movement. When I shoot down for the attack, I cant keep my balance and I fall down with my partner which is okay because I am far from being put into a choke.

Now my question is, is this technique actually effective, because when I attack the lower thigh above the knee, I also pull behind the cav muscle to get the push pull action. So I can pull off an ankle or leg lock.

In practice I cannot attack the target hard for fear of injuring my partner, but at the same time, I dont really know if this would work. I've done the technique twice on my brother when we were fighting. And from what he told me, he says he was actually stunned by the elbow to the lower thigh and when I brought him down I was able to pull an ankle lock on him.

But would this approach work on someone who was more of an expert in grappling? Or on someone who was really pi$$ed off and wanted to do serious inury to me? I know my ankle and leg locks work, but would my take down work?

The people I practice with tell me yes, but I'm just not sure, perhaps some of you more experience grapplers have a safer way of practicing this?

I hope you understood the scenerio, I tend to be wordy when I type.

By the way, when I go for the single leg take down, I manage to stay on my knees, while maintaining hold of the leg. I just fall back on my rear to apply the lock.

Lets just say that (if I am understanding your technique right) there are other variations of single legs that I would opt for first. The method you describe isn't one that I see often used with wrestlers. The methods they use tend to be the more "high percentage" when it comes to takedowns.

It seems that if your method fails, you'd be left in a really bad position. Against a good fighter that's suicide.

Aye! Head up and remember to look forward. Many, myself included , some times have a bad habit of turning your head away right before/when you grab the leg. You do this and you will not get full power and will get t3h cross face.

One variation I like to use when I dont seem to get the man down is just brutal tackling the front leg with all power. In this you dont have to bull the neck and look up.It wont get you in a very good position but the game will go to the ground.